death sauntered up to
the bar, a few drinks deep.

what's a pretty little
thing like you
doing in an ugly little
place like this?

i laughed
like it was funny.

i make poor decisions
i said.

why not make
better ones
he asked.

i'm having too much
fun
i lied.

his lips stretched across
his teeth
in a semblance of
a smile. he thought i meant
i'd be a good night's
****.

let's get out of here
he said.

i drained the last of
my empty glass,
slipped my hand into
my empty pocket,
fruitlessly shook
my empty pack of smokes.

they were all full
an hour ago. or
maybe a year ago. you
lose track of time in
an ugly little
place like this.

that's not what i meant
i thought.

okay
i said.

we grabbed our coats and
walked out into
the cold.

Beneath our bruised and blistered feet
there comes a strange unearthly beat,
a pulse beneath our sad complaints
about how things were what they ain't
how everything has gone to hell
and how we got here none can tell
how kids ain't got no **** respect
how there's no rule they won't reject
and folks ain't safe now in their beds;
this beat continues, fractures, spreads
adds rhythms to the observation
that mankind's headed for damnation
the whole confounded human race
is ragged, cracked, a sad disgrace
(not like when we were being raised
our folks knew better, heav'n be praised
and we had boundaries, and grit,
and cross those lines and you'd get hit!)
And maybe we would stop lamenting
but this relentless pulse is venting
every bitter ball of bile
and tapping, tapping all the while
and speeding up in frenzied glee
until we all can plainly see
that, spinning in a beat-bound haze
we're longing for the GOOD OLD DAYS!
When Earth was young and pure and clean
and folks were kind, not cold and mean
and guided by self interest -
we used to see them at their best!
And click and tap and snap and clatter
comes rising from the mud and litter
And we're so caught in this discourse
we have no time to seek its source.
But down and down, beneath the soil
encased in bedrock black as oil
grinning to a tune they know,
the rhythm section's all a-glow
the skeletons of murdered daughters
of babies born and swiftly slaughtered
vagabonds and martyrs who
were butchered for a point of view
and soldiers, soldiers, cold battalions
knocked by maces off their stallions
to die dishonoured and forgotten
and lie until their bones were rotten
lost amongst the brittle league
of those who toppled to the plague
They're all awake and keeping time
to our pathetic little rhyme
and clacking carpals and phalanges
grind the message: "nothing changes!"
and not one ragged scrap of bone,
no semi-fossil all alone
can summon any memory
of when things were how they should be

So maybe I will stop the dance
and note the happy circumstance
that I am safe and well and free
I like my friends and they like me
and while injustice still exists
I'm not about to slit my wrists
No-one makes a bright tomorrow
by gazing backwards filled with sorrow
and here and now, I do aver -
I'm glad things aren't the way they were.

The Brooklyn Bridge is
an array of lights
stretching limb to limb
across the water.

It slaps tiny sequins on the east river,
as those give way
on that anything but black and steady
to blinking eyes on the barges
and the flittering stingers of heliccopters
zipping from cloud to cloud.

This orchestra of human expansion
reddens the black walls
of my apartment,
with light.

The scratchy comforter
and starch-hardened pillow
scramble on my bed
in a mess of rifts and fabric mountains.

I love getting up
in the middle of the night
and staring out of this window,
but when I go back to bed,
the voices of the wasps,
mournful barges,
and falsetto of the old springs
give way to thinking
and restlessness.

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
     The night above the ****** starry,
          Time let me hail and climb
     Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
          Trail with daisies and barley
     Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
     In the sun that is young once only,
          Time let me play and be
     Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
          And the sabbath rang slowly
     In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
     And playing, lovely and watery
          And fire green as grass.
     And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
     Flying with the ricks, and the horses
          Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the **** on his shoulder: it was all
     Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
          The sky gathered again
     And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
     Out of the whinnying green stable
          On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
     In the sun born over and over,
          I ran my heedless ways,
     My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
     Before the children green and golden
          Follow him out of grace.

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would
                  take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
     In the moon that is always rising,
          Nor that riding to sleep
     I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
          Time held me green and dying
     Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Gravity is not my friend.
It forgets from time to time
To do its job and keep my two feet
Planted firmly on the ground.
I can’t seem to get around
Invisible stumbling blocks,
Tripping over my own two feet,
Knocking into things just by
Walking in a straight line.

Gravity is lazy,
Wanting only to do the bare minimum.
It makes my chest feel heavy when
I lay down but if I close my eyes
I feel my own untethered soul
Float up into the ceiling
And hide amongst the water pipes.

Sometimes, I think gravity gets scared
When I wish myself into something
Scattered brain and disconnected
Disassociation, depersonalization,
Derealization—these side effects on the bottle
They’re all taunting gravity
And gravity runs to hide,
Knocking me off balance and
Up the stairs and skinning my knees
And sometimes I don’t even know I’m bleeding

But sometimes gravity fights back
And my feet are stuck to the ground
My limbs can’t seem to move, my
Head feels like a hundred pounds
My body aches until I lay down
And sink into the carpet.

Sometimes I wonder if you feel it too
If gravity and you are on the odds as well
With all your liquid confidence
And substances to keep you happy
And your tales of falling down stairs—
You fall down, I fall up.
We bob together in a sea of regret
And change and past and
Present and future and lust
And hate but most of all love
Nursing our wounds through
Self medication until a very fed up gravity
Pushes us down, down down down.

Sometimes I think if gravity
Were a little more benevolent
We’d never have hit
These bumps in the road.
I could stay grounded,
Feet planted firmly.
You could stay buoyant
Far above the surface.

But no,
Gravity is a very fickle beast.
And as you’re leading me
Back to my room
For one last goodnight kiss
I trip

And float away.